


city lights

by agoldenblackbird (mass_hipgnosis)



Series: websterverse [6]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Jane POV, Junk science, Ridiculousness, SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS, Steve POV, Superhero Frathouse Skyscraper, deep fried crack, no seriously I am neither an engineer nor an astrophysicist, snark and twinkies, the prodigal captain returns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-21 14:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2471927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mass_hipgnosis/pseuds/agoldenblackbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers returns to New York, Jane makes a breakthrough, and the Avengers assemble.  // Alternating Steve and Jane POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. welcome to the asylum

**Author's Note:**

> It's not so much that I haven't had time to write lately....but in the family drama headspace I was in, it would have come out, 'Rocks fall, everyone dies. And then become zombies. And then die AGAIN.' So, a big thank you to my parents for bringing the snark at Thanksgiving dinner (you knew I had to get it from somewhere), and inspiring me to get back to work on this, and also to remember that not everyone I'm related to makes me want to facepalm and then deny that I know them.

Steve hadn't been entirely sure about moving into Stark Tower when he returned to New York. Fury pushed for it, and it wasn't like he could expect SHIELD to put him up indefinitely now that he was somewhat acclimatized to the new century. Finding an apartment of his own seemed like an exercise in futility, as he was horrified by the prices charged even for the kind of flop he and Bucky had lived in before the war, and then there was security to consider.

So, against his better instincts, he set foot in the apartment Stark had apparently designed for him.

He'd expected either sleekly modern and uncomfortable decor, or all red-white-and-blue, or possibly a time capsule of the kind of place Howard Stark would have lived before Steve had been frozen, all sleek expensive lines like something out of a film, in the style that he had learned was now called 'Art Deco.'

It was none of the above, which was puzzling.

A lot of the furniture was of a recognizable style, though it mostly smelled new, either reproductions or recovered and refinished. The color scheme was mostly earth tones, browns and tans and greens, the occasional hit of carmine, with brass accents. The couch was a big blocky square thing, of channel tufted leather, and large enough that he could stretch out on it. The leather was beaten to butter-softness and even scarred in places, and it was sinfully soft. It reminded him, fondly, of the bomber jacket he'd worn for that first crazy mission in Austria. It rested on a rag rug that was similar to the one that had been at his bedside as a boy, that his Ma had made, although much larger. The whole apartment was like that; well-appointed and comfortable without being so expensive-looking he was afraid to touch anything.

He dropped his duffel and shield off in the bedroom and headed back out to explore the communal living area shared by all the Avengers.

In the kitchen, he found a young lady in glasses singing along to the radio as she baked, and was instantly struck back to his earliest childhood memories. They hadn't been able to afford a radio until he was older, but his mother had liked to sing as she cooked, and she'd worn glasses, too.

He'd been watching her for about fifteen minutes when she looked over at him and said, “You're almost at your loitering limit; you stick around too long and I'll put you to work.”

“I'm pretty awful in the kitchen,” Steve confessed. “If you need things fetched or washed, I'm good at that.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I have a Gromit for that. Also, hi, who are you?”

“Steve Rogers.”

“Riiiight, Cap.” She blinked up at him and said, “You look way more masked and imposing on TV. I'm Darcy Lewis, the head Geek Wrangler around here. I spend my days making sure the Scientists Three remember to eat and sleep. Is your room okay? Tony had kind of a Yankee Doodle theme happening originally, I didn't think you'd like that but I've been wrong before.”

“No, it's great. Not what I was expecting,” he admitted. “Thank you, Miss Lewis.”

“Awesome. But if you call me Miss Lewis one more time, I'm gonna start calling you Captain Rogers. How was your grand tour of America? Did you visit the world's biggest ball of twine?”

Steve grinned. “I did. _Darcy._ I thought it'd be bigger.”

Just then, Tony Stark came in. “Capsicle! You're here! Now I just need the Spy Kids to get back from Turduckenstan or wherever and I'll have the full set. Darcy, love of my life, apple of my eye, spark in my engine, are you making Twinkies?”

“Maybe, what do I get if I do?”

“My undying adoration.”

She blew a raspberry. “I already have _that.”_

“Free room and board for life?”

“Nice try, supafly, but no dice.”

“Well what do you _want?”_ he asked, exasperated.

“I want you to fill out and _sign_ all the forms from the two-headed lizard thing that Mad-Eye Moody has been hounding me about.”

He pouted. “Really?”

“Yup.”

“But I hate paperwork.”

“Already knew that.”

“And I hate Fury.”

“Duh.”

“And I hate doing paperwork for Fury.”

“That would be the cumulative result, yes.” She turned to Steve. “You have a supersoldier metabolism, right? Think you could eat five batches of Twinkies by yourself?”

Tony made a noise of pure agony.

“Probably,” Steve admitted.

“All right, all right, I'll do it!” He scowled at her. “You said you weren't going to make me do paperwork!”

“Noo....I said I didn't think I _could,_ using my usual methods. But I am apparently a victim of my own success; I got you to do stuff _one time_ and now Queen Boadicea and Snake Plissken both expect me to pull miracles out of my ass on the regular. I'm being appropriately compensated, but still. Annoying.”

“Apollo Global bought the recipie and are bringing it back into production, soon you won't be able to bribe me with your golden crack, missy.”

“One-my homemade twinkies are way better than the storebought kind and you know it, and two-I have plenty of other tactics in reserve.”

“Please tell me you're going with the Bruce-tactic.”

She snorted. “Maybe for your birthday, perv. I'm pretty sure Bruce is unique in the universe; that threat would not work on _anyone_ else.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at him in an assessing way that was reminiscent of his father and gave Steve the urge to flee. “Bet it would work on Cap.”

Darcy turned and studied him too. “Nah. For a couple of reasons.”

“Oh really? Well, this I have to hear.”

“Um, excuse me? What exactly is the 'Bruce Tactic?'” Steve broke in.

“Dr. Banner had been in the lab for almost two days. I told him if he didn't get out, eat something, and get at least six hours of sleep, I was going to flash him my boobs. He blushed so hard I thought his head was going to explode, but it worked.”

“Explain to me why it won't work on Mr. Truth & Justice, here,” Stark challenged her.

“He spent a year on tour with like two dozen showgirls, I would bet my next paycheck that he is completely blasé about getting flashed. I don't know where you got the idea that he's some blushing virgin who wouldn't say shit if his mouth was full of it. People had premarital sex in the forties, you know. They used swear words, too.”

“Thank you,” Steve said after taking a moment to process that.

She looked at him like he had a screw loose. “Thank you for thinking you're a normal person?”

“Yes.”

“It is really sad that you have to thank people for that.”

“But he's so bad with women!” Tony protested.

Darcy sighed. “Even guys who are bad at talking to women get laid occasionally, Stark, especially when they look like _that._ Also, my mother was a showgirl, believe me when I tell you, they delight in breaking the shy ones. It's like a hobby for them. He _might_ have been blushy and innocent at some point, although considering he grew up in Brooklyn during Prohibition, I sort of doubt it...but he definitely wasn't once they got done with him.”

He's not a virgin, blushing or otherwise, not with men, thanks to Bucky, or with women, most of that thanks to Josie, who was the U in USA, and Doris, who was going to be a prima ballerina before her dad lost his job and her parents couldn't afford the lessons. She ended up a chorus girl instead. The girls had taught him everything he figured he'd ever need to know about pleasing a woman, both bedroom stuff and, from the ones who were married or had steady fellas, more prosaic things like how to braid hair or give a truly spectacular foot massage. Darcy's right, all the shy was beaten out of him on the USO tour, to the point where he's usually only a bumbling idiot with a dame he actually _likes,_ like Peggy. He can be smooth and charming when it doesn't matter.

Because _that's_ terribly helpful.

He's brought back to himself by Darcy-Miss Lewis- _Darcy_ ordering Tony out of her kitchen. “Go build something,” she suggested. “Bend the laws of physics to your will, give sentience to a coffeemaker, I don't care, get out, you're in my way.”

“How come Stars and Stripes isn't getting the bum's rush?”

“Because he's not dogging my every step like an anxious chihuahua,” she chided him, smacking his hand when he moved to dip a finger in the icing bowl. “And he doesn't have _engine grease_ under his _fingernails,_ Tony, _get out!”_ she demanded, but she was laughing as she jabbed him in the ribs and then started beating her loosely curled fists on his shoulder, too gently to do any real damage.

“Violence!” he protested. “Insults and violence! That is rude and uncalled for!" 

“I regret nothing!” she yelled at his retreating back, before turning back to Steve and saying, “I would reassure you that we're not all crazy here, but it would be a blatant lie. So. Welcome to the asylum?” 

Steve barked out an incredulous laugh. “Thanks. I think.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this idea literally came to me in a dream, and most of the time, when such things happen, I'm just like, 'yeah whatever brain,' and then I go on with my day. Occasionally, when I think about it, it actually seems like a neat idea. As a way of lampooning both the accidental-baby-acquisition and happily-ever-after-equals-pregnant tropes so often seen in fic, I thought it would be neat to do something where one of Tony's past one-night-stands shows up with a baby and wants $$$$$. And Tony being Tony, his response to that is, 'No, that seems like a bad deal, how about I keep my money and you give me the kid,' not because he really wants a kid but because he is contrary as fuck.
> 
> My personal authorial-handwaving headcanon for Websterverse timeline is that the events of IM2 took place about 6 months prior to Avengers (and I'm going with the theatrical release date here and pinning the Battle of New York at May 4th), so when city lights happens, we're at late July-early August. So some one-night-stand (not even a one-night stand, more like Tony fucked her in the back room at a club without even taking his clothes off, all he did was unzip his pants) showing up from his palladium-poisoning-wild-behavior stage with a newborn is totally in the realm of possibility.
> 
> Annnd then Tony has an infant and knows nothing about children, he's the King of High Risk Behavior, he's torn between reassuring Pepper that he didn't cheat on her when they were together and not wanting to bring it up at all, and he's got this whole flirtationship with Darcy going on.
> 
> OR.
> 
> I have a scene set in city lights where Darcy has to 'do a Pepper' and get rid of one of Tony's one-night stands in the morning. Because Tony and Darcy are not in fact dating, and having feelings for a woman he works with has never stopped Tony from sleeping with random club bunnies (See Exhibit A: Pepper Potts). That woman could instead be the baby mama, and we would have, 9/10 months down the road when Tony and Darcy are actually together, a surprise!baby that is not theirs.
> 
> I think it would be interesting either way, and I could definitely work it into the general outline of the series and the parts I already have written. So my question is whether you all want to see this happen at all, and if so, which version you would prefer. Normally I would just write it however I wanted to, but I really can't decide which of the three I like best, and I discovered in the past that trying to write multiple different versions like some kind of choose-your-own-adventure fanfic just results in me getting overwhelmed and not finishing ANY of it. So, please help me pick a direction.


	2. dinner and a show

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could give you a lot of excuses for why this took so long. Some of them even good, legitimate excuses! But the tl;dr version goes thusly: I'M SORRY, I SUCK. Thank you for being patient.

Steve spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and settling in to his apartment. It was at least twice the size of the barracks at Camp Lehigh, which he'd shared with two dozen men. It seemed like it was far too much space for one person, and yet Stark's penthouse had been _two_ floors before he'd redone the main floor as a communal space for all the Tower residents.

Steve headed back to the communal floor when it was getting to be around dinner time, and found the others already there. Darcy was overseeing the goings-on in the kitchen like a general on campaign, and had put Bruce to work chopping lettuce for a salad. Thor was grating cheese. Dr. Foster, it looked like, had been in the middle of getting something out of the fridge when an idea struck, and was standing with the door open, scribbling equations on the freezer door with a marker pen.

Darcy laughed and gently maneuvered Dr. Foster out of the way, then closed the door, turning around just in time to smack Stark's hand away from the cheese, then returned to spooning sauce over noodles. Steve took in the counterful of glass dishes. Lasagna. Oh.

“You know, I could pay somebody to do this,” Stark said.

Darcy rolled her eyes as she sprinkled a double-handful of cheese over the top of the dish. “Me, Monty Burns. You pay _me_ to do this. Because you tried to hire a chef and we got a tabloid journalist, three fangirls, two industrial spies, a starfucker and an assassin. If you hadn't poached one of SHIELD's scary knife-weilding janitors, the bathrooms in this place would be growing sentient life by now.”

“I built Gromit.”

“You did indeed, and Gromit is awesome. He gets things off high shelves, cleans the oven and loads the dishwasher like a boss. He just cooks about as well as his creator, although unlike you he's apparently teachable.”

He put one hand over his heart in mock offense. “Ow, my tender feelings!”

She snorted. “Please, your ego is a teflon-coated titanium alloy. But by all means, if you want to live off takeout and Hot Pockets and die at age fifty of a completely preventable heart attack, I could spend less time in the kitchen and more time doing paperwork and answering the phone...you know, the things that are _actually_ in my job description.”

“No, no no no. Absolutely no extra paperwork of any kind.”

“That's what I _thought,”_ Darcy declared, satisfied. She flipped the oven open, grumbled about forgetting to adjust the rack as things slammed and rattled, and then the trays of lasagna were going in. “Make yourself useful, Cheese-Thief, and pick out a wine for dinner.”

He offered her a grin and a sloppy salute. “Can do.”

Dr. Foster set down her marker and looked around like she was surfacing from a deep sleep. “Dinner?”

“In a bit, Janey-girl,” Darcy replied with obvious affection. It reminded Steve of Bucky, who had talked to him with that exact teasing fondness when Steve was coming out of an artistic fugue state.

Steve was drawn into the chaos of a team supper, occupying the 45 minutes the lasagnas took to bake and rest by making salad and garlic bread and individual fruit parfaits, setting the table, loading the dishwasher, and wiping down the countertops. The laughter and energy of too many people in too small a space reminded him of dinner at the Barnses' when he was young. Inside jokes and cheery insults were batted back and forth like tennis balls.

When they finally settled down to eat, Steve found himself between Jane Foster and Bruce Banner at the oversized round table. He decided the shape was a good choice, tactically-easy to see everyone else in order to facilitate friendly conversation and there were no 'heads' to lead to superficial jockeying for position. He wondered if the choice had been accidental or deliberate.

“How many vegetables did you put in this thing?” Stark complained, poking at his lasagna.

“All of them,” Darcy replied unrepentantly. “Because the only way I can get you to eat vegetables is to cover them with cheese. Onions, shallots, celery, garlic, tomatoes, roasted bell pepper, zucchini and mushrooms in the sauce, pureed carrots as a thickener, cauliflower in the pasta, and spinach in the second layer. Give it to me, if you don't want it.”

He pulled his plate closer protectively. “I didn't say that.”

Steve found himself chuckling softly. The sound was a bit rusty. It wasn't like having the Howlies back-he was starting to realize that nothing would ever be, and more, realizing that it was _okay_ for things to not be like he remembered. They could still be his team, he could still care about them, without everything being how it was. If the war had ended, and the Howlies had gone home, and he'd stayed with the SSR and got a new team, it would have been the same damn thing.

Well, without most of the old team being _dead,_ but still.

He hadn't even finished his third helping before Darcy had an announcement to make.

“Okay, family movie night immediately after dinner, this means _everybody._ Dr. Fluffy, I'm looking in your direction here. No skipping out to romance your ladylove.”

“Bruce has a girlfriend?” Stark demands, sounding outraged.

“Science. Science is his girlfriend. He writes her sonnets. There are heart-eyes.”

Banner ducks his head a little to hide it, but Steve can see that he's grinning.

“JARVIS, bring up-”

“No, no no.” Darcy slapped her hand over Tony's mouth. “You do not get to pick.”

“But it's my house!”

“No, you see, I have a plan. I have selected one of the _finest_ swashbuckling films ever put to celluloid. Humour, adventure, happy endings. Guaranteed not to poke at anyone's PTSD or childhood trauma. Also, fun for the _whole_ family, which means Hammertime and Captain Anachronism won't miss half the jokes because they lack context.” She grins broadly, pleased with herself. “JARVIS, pull up _The Princess Bride.”_

“Ugh, not again.”

“Shut your mouth, Anthony Stark,” Darcy demanded. _“Princess Bride_ is awesome and you know it.”

“As you wish,” Stark replied, but he was smirking.

“Is this one of those movies I have to watch to catch up?” Steve asked, a little wearily.

Darcy pursed her lips and made a considering noise. “Not really. I mean, I know people who haven't seen it, or have seen it and didn't like it, and that's fine, whatever, it's their life and their time. There's lots of movies _I_ haven't seen or don't like that are supposedly iconic or cultural touchstones or whatever, and no one's revoked my millenial card or sent me to remedial Film Studies. It's one of my favorite movies, and also it isn't going to have a bunch of pop culture references that you and Thor won't get, so you should be able to actually enjoy it instead of 'catching up.'”

He relaxed, even smiled a bit, because that was a first. “Sounds great. Is there a sequel?”

“No, but if you're game afterward we can watch my favorite baseball movie.”

“I like baseball.”

“Good.”

Thor and Dr. Foster didn't stick around to watch _A League Of Their Own,_ and Banner fell asleep halfway through it. When movie night was over, Darcy slipped him a paperback copy of _The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, The 'Good Parts' Version_ with a wink and a smile.

“Miss Lewis?” he said softly as she was turning to leave.

“It's _Darcy,_ Captain Rogers.”

“Sorry. Darcy. That's probably gonna take me a while.”

“We have time,” she said kindly. “I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

“Yeah. Thanks, for tonight, for...just, thanks.”

“You're welcome. This is gonna sound kinda weird, and feel free to say no, but can I give you a hug?”

Steve felt his eyes burn, bit the inside of his cheek to hold it off. “Sure,” he said shortly, because he didn't think he could get out more than one syllable without his voice cracking.

She wrapped her arms around his ribs so tightly it almost hurt, even in his serum-enhanced body. Even though he warned himself to be careful, because he'd broken drinking glasses and doorknobs when he was still getting used to his strength, he found himself holding on almost as tight, to the point that she was lifted off her feet when he relaxed enough to stop slouching. She let out a little _eep!_ of shock, but didn't let go.

Her hair smelled like herbs and citrus and a bit like clean sweat, in a way that reminded him of his mother. He sighed. For all that he'd had a lot of revelations today about not being as alone in this new century as he'd thought he was, he just wanted to go _home._ He started to loosen his arms, because he didn't want to be weird, but she only held on tighter and started rubbing his back in circles with the flat of her palm. “Hang on as long as you want,” she said against his collarbone.

So he did.

When he finally let go, Banner had got up at some point and gone to bed, and Steve's eyes were red and wet. He sniffed and wiped at them roughly with the heel of his hand, embarassed.

Darcy put her hands on his shoulders and tugged, gently, and when he bent down, she pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead, like a blessing. “Have a good sleep,” she wished him softly, then ruffled his hair and left.

Steve stood there in the empty room, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the city, for long minutes as he tried to sort out his thoughts. Finally he gave it up as a bad job and went back to his apartment, where he stripped out of his clothes and crawled into the oversized four-poster bed covered in handmade quilts like works of art. The weight of them was comforting. Between one breath and the next, he was asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. You know, I have over 150,000 words of MCU fic written. About a third of that is websterverse. Do you think I could buckle down and actually work on the next chapter of city lights instead of everything else ever? Of course not. WHY BRAIN WHY.
> 
> This chapter fought me every step of the way for pretty much a year. But it's one step closer to the parts I've had written since the beginning of Websterverse and am so excited to share!
> 
> Also, I am going to be editing old stuff and bringing it over from LJ/ff.net/various sites over the next little while. Almost none of it is MCU. I will put warnings on any unfinished fics that they are unfinished, and the date of last publication pre-ao3. Any unfinished series with all finished fics will have that information on the series blurb.
> 
> Also also! I am on tumblr, hey ho, where I reblog funny things and cry about my OTPs. Come keep me company/ask me headcanon questions at [agoldenblackbird.](http://agoldenblackbird.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Did you make it all the way through this author's note? You are a rockstar! Four for you, Glen Coco.


	3. Un-Belieberable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane will do whatever it takes to steal her BFF back from Tony Snark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you with slow-clap congrats to Civil War for making me hate characters I previously loved and thus delaying this next part by months even though I literally had half of one scene left to write. I should have listened to my instincts and not watched it (damn you, Netflix!), but I'm busily repressing and almost at the point where I can fluff again. Word of warning, my MCU fics will pretty much never be CW-compliant unless I feel like making myself and all of you cry.
> 
> Bonus points if you can spot the reference to Supernatural, which was my first fandom.
> 
> Also also, votes are in! Get prepared to meet Nora Hypatia Stark.

Jane tried not to resent the fact that Darcy was never in her lab anymore. When they first arrived in New York, she'd stuck to Jane's lab and her own suite of rooms _religiously,_ but once she got comfortable, she'd taken to working in the kitchen on the main floor, with occasional sojurns to 'Candyland' to make sure Jane, Bruce and Tony ate. 

She spent more time in Tony's workshop than in Bruce's and Jane's labs _combined._

Jane huffed. “Not being resentful,” she muttered to herself as she pried the back panel off of Ringo to see why it'd been acting up. 

She'd thought she wanted Darcy to stop hovering until she actually stopped hovering. Now she seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time doing paperwork that was _not_ Jane's and flirting with Tony Snark. 

Not that Jane begrudged Darcy a 'superhero snuggle-bunny,' in her friend's words, or at least, not very much. But did it have to be _him?_ Why couldn't Darcy fall for Steve Rogers? Or even Bruce, who admittedly, Jane didn't know very well, but he seemed polite and kind and he had never, not _once,_ messed with Jane's babies or called them _junk._

Tony Stark, _ugh._ If they weren't living in his Tower, Jane would open a wormhole to Jotunheim and push him in. If he didn't stop hogging her best friend, she might do it anyway. 

* * *

**Puente Antiguo, 2011**

_As long as you love me...._

“Ugh, WHY, this song _again?_ I _can't take it anymore!!!”_ Darcy shrieked. It'd been three weeks since Thor left and SHIELD's jackbooted thugs returned _most_ of their stuff...a lot of Jane's data was missing, along with all the photographs of the Bifrost site, both their personal laptops and Darcy's beloved iPod. In a town that only got one radio station that wasn't country, gospel or right-wing talk radio. 

Jane started humming along, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. 

“No, Janey, Janey Jane Jane, light of my life, please, please I am begging you do _not_ go over to the dark side. If you start singing Bieber I will have to brain you with the spectro-whatsis....thingy.” 

“It's a light-wave spectrometer.” 

“No.” She took out a roll of masking tape, tore off a piece, and slapped it on the side of the machine, then brandished a bright purple sharpie. “Not anymore! Meet Ringo.” She wrote 'RINGO' in all capitals and then drew a shooting star in the remaining space. “See, this is good, because now when you say you need the data from Ringo I'll know what you mean.” 

“Okay, sure. Ringo it is.” Because Darcy was right, that would be easier, and it wasn't like she hadn't known what she was getting into when the only applicant for the position was a poli-sci student. Despite her lack of a scientific background, Darcy had been a godsend. Jane doubted anyone else would have cooked for her, put her to bed like she was five when she'd been up for three days, or stuck around through an _alien invasion_ and then consoled her broken heart afterward. She knew she was damn lucky to have Darcy. 

After that, Jane vanished back into the equations she was trying to recreate, damn SHIELD to the seventh circle of hell....but she surfaced at Darcy's groan of disgust when the song came on again. Jane didn't know how long it'd been, but given Darcy's muttered threats, probably less than an hour. 

She grinned at her whiteboards and sang along, surprised to realize that she knew all the words despite the fact that she usually wouldn't notice an earthquake when she was working. _“I'm under pressure, seven billion people in the world trying to fit in, keep it together, smile on your face even though your heart is frowning-”_

Darcy made a noise like an enraged teakettle and Jane knocked into the whiteboard when she was overtaken with a fit of the giggles. It was the first time she'd laughed since Thor, and realizing that made her breathing hitch. She swallowed down the tears and hummed along with the chorus. 

There was a gasp of shock from behind her. “You're doing that on purpose!” Darcy accused. 

_“As long as you love me, I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold,”_ Jane sang back in answer. 

“You are a troll! You are the trolliest of the trolls!” Her words were accusing, but her tone was delighted. Jane turned to look at her, and saw Darcy's eyes gleaming with unshed tears. She realized with a jolt that Darcy had been worried about her. 

Before she could process that, Darcy had taken her hands and was tugging her into an open area of floor by the kitchenette. “If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. SCIENCE DANCE PARTY!” 

So they danced (well, Darcy danced and Jane flailed somewhat rhythmically), and sang along at the top of their lungs, hardly able to get some lines out, they were laughing so hard. Erik came back down from the roof near the end of the song and looked at them like they were both insane, which only made them laugh harder. 

After that, it was their song. 

* * *

Jane finished recalibrating Ringo and stormed out of her lab. She was going to take her best friend back and Tony Snark better watch out, because his suits wouldn't save him from her wrath. 

Her wrath was somewhat thwarted when she got to Stark's lab, two floors below, and saw through the glass that he was asleep on his workshop couch and Darcy wasn't there. Less miffed but still determined, she headed up to the common floor. 

Success! Darcy was at the kitchen counter with her laptop, grooving along to music played on JARVIS' speakers while she deciphered notes written on a stack of pop-tart wrappers. “Why aren't you doing that in _my_ lab?” 

Darcy jumped almost a foot in the air and shrieked. “Jesus, Janey-Jane, make some noise! I am too young and beautiful to die of a heart attack, you could at least hum a jaunty tune while you're sneaking up on people!” 

That made her smile in spite of herself. “It wouldn't be very stealthy if I hummed.” 

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, my _point.”_

“Those are my notes. Why aren't you doing that in my lab?” 

“Remember a couple months ago when you kept having science tantrums and kicking me out of the lab?” 

“I never kicked you out!” Jane protested. 

“It was sort of implied when you handed me a stack of grant proposals and SHIELD paperwork and told me to take it somewhere else.” 

“Because it was stressing me out! I could feel it staring at me accusingly!” 

“Paperwork does not have eyeballs, Janey. And considering your mutual hate-on for the stuff I'm surprised you and Tony don't get along better.” 

“He's a thief! And he called Stuart a piece of junk!” 

“Stuart _is_ a piece of junk! Literally, you made it out of a broken ice machine we found at the junkyard!” 

Jane sulked a little at that because, well, it was true. _“We_ made it. And there was no reason not to use the housing since it already fit the condenser coils. And he's still a thief.” 

“Did he take Starla again?” 

“No, I hid Starla.” The EMF detector she'd made out of an old walkman was a point of particular pride for her, but also easily transportable and hidden on someone's person – someone like _Stark._ “He stole _you.”_

By the expression on Darcy's face, Jane would have thought someone had just told her Christmas was cancelled. Before Jane could take it back, her chin jutted in that stubborn fashion that had usually meant a jack-booted thug was about to have a really bad day. “JARVIS,” she said gravely. “Play _the song.”_

The opening bars of _As Long As You Love Me_ echoed from the speakers, and Jane gasped. When Darcy finally got her iPod back, a scant week before she'd had to return to Culver to finish her degree, she'd declared grandly, 'Calamity Jane, light of my life, I love you to the moon and back, but as Thor is my witness, I will _never_ listen to Bieber _again.'_

But now, Darcy actually dropped to her knees with both hands on her heart as she wailed, _“As long as you love me, we could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke! As long as you love me, I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold!”_ either uncaring of, or completely oblivious to, Captain America drawn by the noise. He had his shield with him when he rushed into the kitchen, so it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that he'd been worried someone was murdering a cat. He was staring at them with a dropped jaw – Jane had never seen someone's jaw actually drop from shock in real life. 

“Darcy, _no.”_

She waggled her eyebrows. “Darcy YES!” 

Jane shrieked with laughter. “You're a crazy person!” 

“Crazy about you, Calamity Jane! _'Now we steppin' out like whoa, oh god, cameras point and shoot! They say what's my best side, I stand back and point at you, you, you!'”_ Darcy sang, jabbing one finger in Jane's direction. 

Jane couldn't resist, grabbed the pointing hand and sang along as they – well, they didn't really dance, so much as hold hands and jump up and down on the beat. _“So I know we got issues baby, true true true, but I'd rather work on them with you than go ahead and start with someone new, as long as you love me!”_

And then Darcy kissed her on the forehead and they were laughing too hard to sing the rest. 

When the song ended, they were sprawled out side by side on the kitchen floor trying to remember how to breathe and Darcy said, “I've just been trying not to hover so much. I did promise you and stuff.” 

“No, I don't want you to hover more. Definitely not. But we could hang out,” Jane suggested tenatively. She'd had school-friends and classmates, and then in college, roommates, and then after that, colleagues...but Jane never really had _girlfriends_ before, the kind of friends where you had sleepovers and impromptu kitchen dance parties, painted each other's nails and tried on each other's clothes, called each other BFF and giggled about boys. 

“I vote _Firefly_ marathon. Pizza and PJs and mani-pedis and mojhitos and _no boys allowed.”_

Jane grinned at the ceiling, ignoring the fact that Captain America was still looking at them like they were certifiably insane. “That sounds perfect.” 

* * *

Jane was angrily eating granola with blueberries and lemon yogurt, because Darcy had taken yesterday as permission to hover a _little bit_ more and locked her out of the lab until she had breakfast. Tony was next to her, facedown on the table, clutching his coffee cup like it was necessary to life and ignoring his own bowl of granola (with raspberries and vanilla yogurt). 

Steve Rogers was making himself oatmeal at the stove and humming something. Darcy was watching him like a proud mother, probably because he was capable of feeding himself, something the rest of the Tower residents were notoriously terrible at. Thor was no longer even allowed to _touch_ kitchen appliances, since his lightning abilities apparently interacted badly with anything that ran on electricity unless it was EMP-shielded. (They'd gone through three microwaves before figuring _that_ one out.) 

“What. What is that humming?” Tony sat up and glared blearily in Steve's direction. “Are you humming _Bieber?!”_

“Darcy was singing it yesterday,” Steve replied, but his ears turned red and he tried to turtle into his shirt and failed, because it was at least a size too small. 

“He's been here _three days_ how did you already corrupt him with your pop filth?” Stark turned his glare on Darcy, and Jane elbowed him for it. He hissed at her like an angry cat without looking away. 

“It's sorta catchy,” Steve admitted. 

“Yeah, like _gonhorrea,”_ Tony muttered, still staring accusingly. “First JARVIS, now _this?_ Your betrayal will not stand, woman!” 

Darcy just smiled, bright and sunny and smug, the one Jane called her 'go fuck yourself' smile, and sang along with Steve's humming. Her voice was an octave higher than his, and the harmonic effect of it was lovely. 

For a moment, Jane was lost in the thoughts of sinusoidal waves, before her mind jumped tracks to her problems with opening a stable Einstein-Rosen bridge. She hadn't been able to mimic the readings from Thor's arrival in Puente Antiguo. Harmonic frequencies. Earth power grids were designed to reduce them, and she needed to _increase_ them. “Oh!” She jumped up, not noticing that she'd spilled her granola. “Oh my god!” 

Tony was looking at her, and she could see that he got it. “Eureka?” 

“Eureka! Tony, I need alterations to the current produced by the arc reactor for the Tower, we have to increase the harmonic frequencies.” 

“That definitely sounds like it'll cause an explosion.” He grinned and clapped his hands together. “Awesome, let's do it!” 

Okay, maybe Tony Snark wasn't _so_ bad. She kind of still wanted to open a portal and push him in it, but maybe just to Queens. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this song came out after _Thor._ But whatevs, I do what I want, and I do recall it was on at least once an hour the summer I was working as an industrial seamstress and the boss set the radio station with no discussion or appeals, to the point where even now I know it word for word. Steve's words are accurate: it is sorta catchy. Tony's words are probably accurate also.


End file.
